Fossil Mammals of Asia: Neogene Biostratigraphy and Chronology

Fossil Mammals of Asia, edited by and with contributions from world-renowned scholars, is the first major work devoted to the late Cenozoic (Neogene) mammalian biostratigraphy and geochronology of Asia. This volume employs cutting-edge biostratigraphic and geochemical dating methods to map the emergence of mammals across the continent. Written by specialists working in a variety of Asian regions, it uses data from many basins with spectacular fossil records to establish a groundbreaking geochronological framework for the evolution of land mammals.

Asia’s violent tectonic history has resulted in some of the world’s most varied topography, and its high mountain ranges and intense monsoon climates have spawned widely diverse environments over time. These geologic conditions profoundly influenced the evolution of Asian mammals and their migration into Europe, Africa, and North America. Focusing on amazing new fossil finds that have redefined Asia’s role in mammalian evolution, this volume synthesizes information from a range of field studies on Asian mammals and biostratigraphy, helping to trace the histories and movements of extinct and extant mammals from various major groups and all northern continents, and providing geologists with a richer understanding of a variety of Asian terrains.

Xiaoming Wang is a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and has been studying fossil land mammals in Asia, especially carnivores, for nearly twenty years. He has led numerous field expeditions in northern China, primarily in Inner Mongolia and the Tibetan Plateau. He is the lead author of Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History.

Lawrence J. Flynn is assistant director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University and a vertebrate paleontologist specializing in Asian studies. He is a longtime coinvestigator on the Siwalik Series of Pakistan and India, Miocene deposits well known for their richness, including large hominoids. He is also coinvestigator with Chinese and American scholars on diverse fossil deposits in several Chinese provinces, including the Late Neogene Yushe Basin.

Mikael Fortelius is professor of evolutionary paleontology at the University of Helsinki and has conducted field-based research in Asia for more than twenty years, particularly in Turkey and China. He is a leader in the field of paleodiet reconstruction and the use of mammalian ecometrics in paleobiological research. Since 1992, he has coordinated the international NOW database of Neogene mammal localities and species of the Old World. He is the lead editor of Geology and Paleontology of the Miocene Sinap Formation, Turkey.